Greedy Goblin

Monday, August 1, 2016

Make the World Safe Again!

Yep, in this post I will campaign for Donald Trump. Why would a non-American care about the US elections? Because the USA affects everyone in the globe and the foreign policies of Trump would be much better for everyone than the policies of Clinton.

I won't start moralizing about the right of one country to export his political system to another by force. I just state the undisputed fact that the democracy exports of the last two decades utterly failed. From Bill Clinton's Mogadishu to Hillary Clinton's Benghazi the attempts brought nothing just more failed states with more terrorists for trillions of dollars and thousands of dead Americans. Just the second Iraq war cost $1.9T (yes, I know it was started by a Republican, one that didn't show up on the convention where Trump was elected as party candidate). That could be a one time $19K tax back for the average taxpayer or a $6K one time welfare to every citizen and all it needed is Bush sitting on his hands, nothing else. Oh, and 5K US families still would have their members.

Trump clearly stated that he would stop the democracy export and acknowledged that dictators could stop terrorists from using their countries as bases, while Clinton is one of the loudest exporter of democracy. If she wins, more young Americans will go out to die for no other result than more countries become Islamic State members. Under her, more taxpayer's trillions will be part burned, part find their way to Clinton campaign supporters: arms manufacturers and Wall Street brokers. To prevent this disaster, Trump needs to do absolutely nothing, just sit on his butt and tell the hawks his favorite line: you're fired!

Let's move on tho the next part of foreign policy: Europe, where most military allies and trading partners of the US are. The Middle East disasters put Europe under the pressure of extreme migrant crisis. While formerly just Russian paid extremists dared to blame the US for it, now it's mainstream talk. Hungary's prime minister on his party rally and standing next to the Austrian PM flat out endorsed Trump and criticized Clinton. Ihe second speech, he called the Clinton policy "deadly". Yes, a NATO member called the current US foreign policy an existential threat. The translation can't give back the emotional charge of the speech. When I heard it, I was absolutely sure that he already made plans that if Clinton wins, Hungary jumps out the NATO overnight and joins the Russian military alliance. That would mean Russian nukes in the middle of Europe, bypassing the anti missile system planted in Europe.

Hungary is the loudest, but would far from the biggest critic of the current foreign policy. The right wing "extremists" have more votes than the "moderates" since the migrant crisis and they all have positive relations with Russia. If Le Pen wins the French elections, that's the end of the NATO. Erdogan openly blames the US for sheltering the Turkey coup mastermind and everywhere in Eastern Europe there is a heavy criticism against the coup in Ukraine: after all, Janukovich - no matter how bad he was - was a democratically elected president with no blood on his hands. Everyone became jumpy from there, fearing that the next "democratic" coup will happen in his country. I think if Clinton wins, the US - EU relations will stop being friendly. To prevent this, Trump - again - has to do nothing, just sit on his butt and stop messing with the internal issues of the Europeans. That, and ending the migrant spawning Middle East nonsense will return the EU-US relations to their normal state. Theoretically Clinton could do the same, but she wouldn't and even if she would, no one would believe her, considering her past actions and her strong affiliation to George Soros, who is the Fethullah Gülen of Europe.

Finally: Russia and China. The current US policy is that the US is the only superpower and the rest cannot challenge this status quo. Except they obviously can. Russia could respond to the coup in Ukraine by taking the the Crimea and destabilizing the rest of the country. Then they went and reversed all US progress (there wasn't much to begin with) in Syria. The US could only respond with economic embargo to Russia - which failed to put enough pressure to Putin to stop, even with record low oil prices. Meanwhile China is capturing strategic islands and building forts on them. The US response is limited to mean words. The objective fact is that these powers grow a lot. While they still cannot challenge the #1 position of the US, they can no longer be bossed around - and Obama tried just that, with Clinton as Secretary of State. Trump is heavily criticized for being "Russian friendly" while in reality he just sees what the State Department bureaucrats refuse to see: the US must cut a deal with Russia and China and in this deal something must be given to them - for example the acknowledgement of Crimea for Russia. Clinton still think she can have it all. 50+ of hes former employees were retarded enough to call for bombing Assad installations - which have Russians in them! This shows perfectly how detached the State Department is from reality.

Summary: in foreign politics, President Clinton would mean conflict after conflict for the US. I'm not saying they can't be won (they don't look that way though), but they would mean awful lot of money not spent on tax cuts nor on welfare. And the elephant in the room is that even if all conflicts would be won, Iraq would be a model democracy and Russia would crawl back beaten from the Crimea, still that wouldn't mean a single dollar reward or a single job for the US citizens while they would pay the price in trillions of dollars and thousands of corpses. Trump on the other hand would mean peace and partnership, which means saving all those dollars. And to reach that, he don't need to be smarter or more experienced than a piece of rock, all he needs to do is not actively starting more troubles, not messing with the internal issues of other countries (including what Assad does at home). With basic tradesman ability he can cut a good deal with Russia and China, as the goals of these countries don't conflict with American interests. "Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it" is a joke, but "Cut a good deal with Putin and make Ukraine pay for it" is very true.

23 comments:

There is one common theme about your RL posts: the impression that you simply don't see yourself amongst the many corpses your 'rational' solutions often could cause. Would you be as eager to support a tradesman-US president if he made the choice to "Cut another deal with Putin, and let Hungary pay" ?

I don't see you factoring in the Trump tariffs and trade wars into your economic calculations. And that is assuming Trump really "does nothing," which is... a tad optimistic.

Even if your post is 100% true, the sad fact remains that a President Trump will likely make at least two Supreme Court nominations, which is all it will take to undo Roe v Wade and basically all other social progress we've made over the decades.

No, they can't. Obamacare is the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" passed by Congress in 2010. Reagan's tax cuts were two pieces of legislation: the "Economic Recovery Tax Act" of 1981 and "Tax Reform Act" of 1986.

The sitting president could have vetoed these acts. If their vetoes were overridden, they could have partially inhibited the acts (e.g. by ordering federal employees not to cooperate with some provisions of the laws). They can also delay action by refusing to appoint officers to fill important seats (e.g. SCOTUS vacancies). And they can sometime find "wiggle room" in the law via signing statements.

In general, though: the US president does *not* possess unilateral power or control over social transfers.

You're correct in that he *does* hold a fair amount of power regarding foreign policy.

@Druur: a deal means no corpses at all. That's the point. No one is dying in the Chrimea where Putin had his way. People are dying in Doneck/Luhansk where the Ukrainens are resisting and in Syria which is a no man's land. The rule of ANYONE is better for the locals than a contested land. Therefore one shall only contest any rule if the ruler is a serious threat. Unless you claim that Putin is planning on an attack on the US, the US has no rational reason to contest his rule.

@Azuriel: tariffs help "the people". They decrease the country GDP but increase social equality, since they force the rich to trade with the poor instead with foreign actors.

I don't know what kind of judges Trump would nominate, but the same is true for Clinton, she can elect judges taking your guns then.

@Anon: then my post is even more true, Foreign Policy should be the main factor in making your decision on the elections.

Trump is "Russia friendly" because of his extensive business dealings with Moscow and Russians over the years, and because his campaign manager was previously adviser to the ukrainian president (yes, that one), and his foreign policy manager has worked with Gazprom.

There is one small country in europe and nato which won't feel very safe if Trump wins.My country - Romania.We see Austria & Hungary voicing against nato, Turkey blaming US for recent failed revolution, Bulgaria refusing to participate at the creation of a nato fleet at the Black Sea.

All above countries were former allies of the axis in war time and most of them (still) have teritorial claims on Romania.For us, US turning a blind eye on Europe and let Russia have its way, would be a total dissaster.

As I understand, most hungarians don't really care about those territorial claims, its only the far right people, and only the hard cores amongst them, and their party is not voicing these claims (or at least, never read about this).

Sure. Leave the Balkans to Turkey, Russia and the rest of Europe to sort out. That has always gone so well. More broadly, eurosplaining to Americans on how to vote is about as helpful as Americans amerisplaining how Europe can never be truly free without assault rifles.

"@Anon: and why is it the responsibility of the USA and its citizens to protect Romanian interests?"

It is mutual interest:

Romania have interest to be military allied with US and with any country that oppose Russia. (Russia invaded us in 24 hours and claimed 30% of our country - this act triggered our entering in WW2 on German side + when Hitler invaded Poland, we gave to Russia all our gold deposits for safe keeping untill war is over....and never seen it back + Russia installed a comunist regime in our country that meant 45 years of totalitarism and poverty for us).

US have interest in Romania (my belief):

Anti-missile nato base + now the only friendly port at the black sea that hates russia.There was a time (cold war) when US played with russia with stealth plains, submarines and space programs untill one day they woked up with nulear rockets in Cuba pointed at them...and all US citizens started to build bomb shelters.I believe they dont want this to happen again and that is why they want to keep strategic points in europe (like Romania) under their influence.

Anti-missile bases were build only in Romania and Poland. Both of these countries hate russia like plague.

@AnonShould NATO start cracking, I am sure Russia would gladly stand for Romania's protection.The price, of course, would be dropping the Moldova issue and recognising the right of people living on that land for self-identification.

@GevlonTo me, Hillary is a bad certainty and Trump is a potentially bad uncertainty. Given this choice, i'd prefer uncertainty.

As for your post, i do agree that there are some things a US President can't change. And i think the notion of US exceptionalism, driving all the democracy exports and other stupid things that you mentioned US is doing, is one of these things a US President can't change.

Therefore, Trump will see a lot of pressure to not sit on his hands and keep doing stupid things. And i don't see him having the ability to resist that pressure.

Hillary, of course, will gleefully give in to it, so she is still worse.

did they fail? The Clintons hugely profited from their political mega-power-positions and others who align themselves with these families/organisations. Yes they did fail the public, but who ever believes their fairytale should be burned at the stake. I'm not as good as others taking stuff down I only saw what happened in Haiti and how Hilary Clinton handled that and how some builder companies profited hugely. other stuff like in Africa flew under my radar.Clinton Cash - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=td2pyyCau30

And it is not just Clintons. they all have their little foundation/organisation.So "Trump clearly stated that he would stop the democracy export" can be ignored, they will do business as usual if that includes a "export of democracy", so be it.

NATO should not expand to the east, that was the deal. since the warsawpact dissolved there is no reason to have the NATO at all. but the west is ignorant and the western public seems not concerned. As horrific as dictators/leaders go putin isn't as hotblooded as other leaders and with all the shit he did and pulls still seems concerned and very calculated.Putin's Warning: Full Speech 2016 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8lIdIMRo

Trump will not change anything. He can not and will not restrain the MilitaryIndustrialComplex therefore there will be no peace EVER! "the war on terror" is the perfect never ending war. And war means profit. The only things changing are the earths resources and the US as far as their geo strategy goes is perfectly positioned.

@MaximThere is no pressure from Romania on Moldova. We see them as our brothers, we help mentain the romanian culture overe there, we give them citizenship if they want & we recognize and respect them as a state. It is for them to decide if they want to unite with Romania or not. But sadly they are controled by russian puppets politicians with russian army on their territory (Transnistria) and pay periodical tribute in $$ to russia (see recent 1 bil. $$ dissapear from Moldavian central bank).Hungary is doing the same thing in Transilvania - keeping their culture alive over here, offering citizenship to anyone born here. I am Romanian born in Transilvania, I know how to speak hungarian and have many hungarian friends here and in hungary. I can apply for hungarian citizenship and have it in 1-2 months if I want to.

@ Gevloneven if one can be the greatest friend with russia or strike a good deal in the future, one should always consider mentaining a ballance of millitary power in the world.I believe that for US there will always be a deffense budget allocated to US army to keep it a relevant counterpart to your friends army. Giving up the influence US have on eastern europe is like giving up half europe to the russians and last time they had it, they had enough money and resources (uranium in romania case) sucked out of those countries to build nuclear rockets and march them in front of Kremlin for 1 October ceremony and when any of those countries protested, to drive the tanks and crush them like they did in Hungary and Czechoslovakia back then or Georgia & Ukraine more recently.

The problem with your line of thinking is that Trump has already said he'd "bomb the hell out of them" (them = IS), so he is guaranteed to have the same foreign policies of Hilary, with the added 'benefit' of also being a wildcard in every other aspect of state affairs. He is also a complete narcissist and all his actions are extremely ego-centric, meaning he could escalate a bad situation even further, only to prove to his opponents that he isn't a wimp.

@Gevlon: Russia, as any other country, wants everything. And it is going to get as much as it can. They won't leave money on the table. And they are ready to use military force. You should give them a good practical reason to stop.If they can, they would gladly make Eastern Europe their sphere of influence once again.

If Trump wins, that means the Republican party will retain control of congress (There is a chance this is wrong, but it is HIGHLY unlikely, there is a good chance Republicans stay in control even if he loses). Trump wants to default on US Government treasury obligations. A sizable chunk of elected Republicans are perfectly fine with this, and already tried to do it at least twice in the last 4 years. The US economy came through the recent recession better than Europe for several related reasons. A) We did not implement austerity plans because B) We could borrow money super cheap because C) Our credit was the only one anyone trusted. Now, personally, I don't think a government should give up the ability to borrow money at almost no interest, but let's, for the moment, assume that it is a good idea to reduce the debt. Jingoism about China buying US debt aside, the majority of that money is owed to American citizens. So, in addition to ruining our credit rating, defaulting on the debt would have the immediate effect of reducing the assets of individual Americans, probably mostly older ones who are either retired, or nearing retirement. Also, Social Security owns a lot of that debt, so retirement payments would likely have to be cut.

Hitler was a dictator with an ideology that demanded dictatorship. Putin is a democratically elected president with no ideology to make people fanatically follow him. While he might want more land, he must mind the will of his people and average Josif don't want to die for the invasion of Romania or West Ukraine or Poland. Putin is only followed by his people while he does what they like: capturing ethnic Russian lands (Chrimea, East Ukraine, Transinistria, Abhazia, east Latvia).

This is what most analyst ignore when they compare Russia with the Soviet Union: the SU had an ideology that made people follow Stalin to Hell, Russia has no ideology.

Hitler was a funny man with a toothbrush moustache and a gift for plain-talking, who could really whip up a beer hall and throw together one heck of a rally. He was also really good at scaring the bourgeoisie by conjuring up the imagery of an Other (leftists, certain folks with roots in the Middle East, moral degenerates) stabbing a good, wholesome nation in the back.

He seemed incompetent, and once elected to the Reichstag, the establishment (e.g. Franz von Papen) thought he could be easily controlled and would basically sit on his hands. The Chancellery at the time of the Weimar Republic was a pretty powerless office, anyway.

He successfully renegotiated some of the punitive restrictions imposed on his nation at Versailles, and built some nice highways.

We’re going to get either Trump or Clinton, so I will be voting for Trump. My reason: the Lugenspresse, the Main Stream Media. They will hound President Trump. Every decision he makes will be shown in the worst possible light, they will do their best to investigate everything he does. President Clinton will get abject adoration, lying and cover from the press. If the only way to get the news media to do their job as watchdogs of government is to make Trump president, President Trump it is. He won’t be able to get away with a hundredth of what Clinton would.

Well, Hitler was democratically elected. So as Putin.Hitler ruled as dictator. So as Putin.Hitler wanted that people fanatically follow him. So as Putin.Hitler wanted to ethnic lands to his country, by force. So as Putin.

If you compare those 2 politicans, they are not so different. History repeats.

Next comes the american presidency. You assume, that war is something that is avoidable. What if its not? If trump is presidency, he can make a deal out of war and if Clinton is in presidency it will continue to use army to sustain status quo. Thing is, americans export weapons. Small scale conflicts are profitable for them. If they stay on small scale. Mirgant crisis is not yet global, but its bigger conflict then expected and for europeans, costly. That makes $ stronger and € weaker, add the americans money printing monopoly to it, and that war is very profitable for them.

Russia is a bully, who can act like "hurt" Ronaldo on soccer match. Name one european country who dares to invade to russia? But how many fear that russia invades to them? Usually, russian social system is weak, compared to european standards. That means people dont want to join russian system, if they lose their benefits. Ukraine was exeptional, their social system was worse then russian and that was the reason why conflict arises. So people want security over that bully, and NATO with big brother usa so far worked. What happens on agression against NATO country, noone knows. If one of the major power countris wants war, they get war. But i bet noone dares to take the first step, as ukrainian example, they use other methods. As personal preference, i prefer "migrant" war, suicide bombers and coups a bit more then nuclear war.

Anti missle defence is not only for russians, its defence from everyone, russian, china, USA, EU itself, even terrorists. Even if you are friendly with russia, they are still needed as power showoff.

You should look up water shortages. Millions of Syrian farmers had to move to city camps when their land ran out of groundwater. That's probably the root cause of a lot of the unrest that's caused all the turmoil that's driving civilians to find somewhere else to settle. Trump can't fix refugees or immigrants. Not without nuking them, which would probably sound like a reasonable option to him.